Saturday, January 10, 2009

Trevon Wax interviews Tim Stoner, author of The God Who Smokes: Scandalous Meditation on Faith. Stoner helpfully provides a list of what he sees as the Emergent Church's "false antinomies (driving a wedge between concepts that only appear to be opposites)", and "Its false synonyms (equating concepts that only appear to be similar)...". Here is the excerpt from that part of the interview:

First off, there are the Emerging Church’s false antinomies (driving a wedge between concepts that only appear to be opposites):

1. The Gospel is about a person, not a message. 2. The Gospel is an event to be proclaimed, not a doctrine to be professed. 3, The message and its interpretation is fluid, not static and solid. 4. The Gospel is about behavior, not belief. 5. The Gospel is primal/elemental (ancient), not European/sacramental (antiquated). 6. The Bible is a human book, not an utterly unique, divinely inspired revelation from God. 7. The church is for the lost, not the found. 8. Life is about searching (pioneer), not finding (settler). 9. Evangelism is about saving the world, not individual souls. 10. The Bible is about stories (indicatives that describe), not prescriptions (imperatives that prescribe). 11. God cares about the boardroom, not the bedroom. 12. Jesus came to set an example, not appease the wrath of God. 13. God is a God of love, not judgment (because He loves He does not hate). 14. Those who teach or believe other “stories” need to be respected, not converted. 15. We are to love the “world”, not hate it. 16. Our posture toward culture is to affirm it, not critique it.

But then, as if to counter its imbalance, it careens off track by over-compensating, for it brings together things that are not the same.

Its false synonyms (equating concepts that only appear to be similar):